Alone Together: Sailing Solo to Hawaii and Beyond

What happens when a man of today's overconnected world sets off alone across the Pacific at the age of 71? Christian Williams, a veteran sailor and writer, planned a 6,000-mile voyage as a test of his own seamanship and endurance, and to fulfill a lifelong goal. But he found his focus quickly turning from the surrounding sea to all of us. Is anyone the same person when no one else is there? Do we dare to find out?

Islands, Oceans, and Dreams: The True Story of a Sailor's Seven Year Solo Voyage Around the World

Islands, Oceans, and Dreams is a true story of a man who, at the age of 33, began dreaming of voyaging with his wife to the South Pacific. He wasn't an adventurer or daring by nature, but he bought a boat and began learning the ways of the sea. Twenty years later, racked with the pain of divorce and still aching to live out his dream, he set off alone for Tahiti. After reaching French Polynesia, he continued cruising for seven years and wound up solo sailing around the world. Islands, Oceans, and Dreams takes the listener on that voyage.

Bound for Distant Seas begins sailing author James Baldwin's epic tale of his second circumnavigation. His story is seasoned by his adventures during his first circumnavigation in 1984-86 as told in Across Islands and Oceans. Alone with little money aboard Atom, his now-engineless 28-foot sailboat, James embarks on his odyssey without the comforts and equipment most sailors consider essential.

Sailing, Yachts and Yarns

Sailing, Yachts and Yarns is a selection of Tom Cunliffe’s funniest, wisest and most thought-provoking writing from the pages of Yachting Monthly. Tom’s love of language and sense of humour shine through as he recalls the wealth of sinners and saints he has met on docksides from Southampton to South America, Greenwich to Greenland and Newtown to New York. He has a gift for capturing the magic of sail and finding pearls of practical wisdom in the most unlikely nautical adventures.

Breaking Seas: An Overweight, Middle-Aged Computer Nerd Buys His First Boat, Quits His Job, and Sails Off to Adventure

Do you have a dream you must pursue, but everyone says it's unrealistic? Or that you're not qualified? Too old, too out of shape? Or you don't have the "right experience?" Glenn Damato was a 41-year-old software instructor who sought to exceed the bounds of his comfortable but humdrum existence. He embarked on an adventure for which he was miserably unprepared. Why did he do this? How did he answer the ancient human question: how do we jump-start growth in our lives? We become something we were not.

Cruising in Seraffyn

The cruising tale is full of the sights and sounds, the fragrances and native customs of foreign lands, especially Central American and the Caribbean. It is a story of a leisurely sail through the Gulf of Cortez and on through Panama Canal to the Azores and England. Cruising in Seraffyn is also a carefully thought out guide to living aboard a small boat, with fun and economy as the guiding principles. Four appendices provide data that is vital for anyone comtemplating long-distance cruising.

The Boy Behind the Gate: How His Dream of Sailing Around the World Became a Six-Year Odyssey of Adventure, Fear, Discovery and Love

With his first mate and crew, amateur sailor Larry Jacobson embarked on a lifelong goal to circumnavigate the globe. Willing to risk all, Jacobson spent six years sailing into the unknown where the unrelenting oceans served as a teacher of seamanship, personal strength, and perseverance. In The Boy Behind the Gate, the author reveals those crucial steps that will motivate you to make your dreams come true. We are each given one great opportunity at life. What are you going to do with yours?

Blue Water, Green Skipper: A Memoir of Sailing Alone Across the Atlantic

Stuart Woods had never owned more than a dinghy before setting out on one of the world's most demanding sea voyages, navigating single-handedly across the Atlantic. How, at the age of 37, did this self-proclaimed novice go from small ponds to the big sea? Now with a new afterword that looks back at how one transatlantic race changed his life, Woods takes listeners on a spectacular journey not just of traveling across the world, but of being tried in fire, learning by accepting challenges, appreciating the beauty of the open water, and living to tell about it.

As Long as It's Fun, the Epic Voyages and Extraordinary Times of Lin and Larry Pardey

To anyone interested in small-boat cruising and voyaging, the names Lin and Larry Pardey need no introduction. As world-girdling sailors who roamed the planet on a pair of small, engineless boats that they built themselves, the Pardeys established their hard-earned reputations by eloquently (and sometimes controversially) telling their stories through a series of best-selling books and manuals, and countless seminars and boat shows.

Two Years Before the Mast

Richard Henry Dana, a law student turned sailor for health reasons, sailed in 1834 aboard the brig Pilgrim on a voyage from Boston around Cape Horn to California. Drawing from his journals, Two Years Before the Mast gives a vivid and detailed account, shrewdly observed and beautifully described, of a common sailor's wretched treatment at sea, and of a way of life virtually unknown at that time.

Bumfuzzle: Just Out Looking for Pirates

The story of a young couple who, without any prior sailing experience, decide one night over too many drinks that they are going to sail around the world. One year later they are bobbing around in the Bahamas on a 35 foot catamaran teaching themselves how to cross oceans in a small boat. Along their way they meet amazing people, visit locations only accessible by those on their own yachts, become television actors in Australia, minor celebrities in Puerto Rico, and generally have a great time of it all.

Imperfect Passage: A Sailing Story of Vision, Terror, and Redemption

Michael Cosgrove had a beautiful family, a successful career, and a lovely Southern California home overlooking the Pacific Ocean. At the age sixty, he decided to leave that all behind to sail around the world. In spite of his romanticized vision of rugged individualism and salty tales to share with his grandchildren, Cosgrove quickly realizes that sailing around the world isn’t going to be as easy as he’d imagined.

Leap of Faith: Quit Your Job and Live on a Boat

There are many of us who dream about selling all our stuff, quitting our jobs, and running away to Paradise. This is a story about one couple who made that dream come true. The author shares what it feels like to experience ultimate freedom, and outlines the steps they took to get there. The story includes tales from their travels, social commentary on the state of today's American society, and a simple financial plan that will benefit anyone, regardless of their future goals.

The Billionaire and the Mechanic: How Larry Ellison and a Car Mechanic Teamed Up to Win Sailing's Greatest Race, the America's Cup

The America’s Cup, first awarded in 1851, is the oldest trophy in international sports, and one of the most hotly contested. In 2000, Larry Ellison, co-founder and billionaire CEO of Oracle Corporation, decided to run for the coveted prize and found an unlikely partner in Norbert Bajurin, a car radiator mechanic who had recently been named Commodore of the blue collar Golden Gate Yacht Club.

Left for Dead: The Untold Story of the Tragic 1979 Fastnet Race

The Fastnet Race is the world famous yacht race from the Isle of Wight to the Fastnet Rock off the southwest coast of Ireland and back. The race of 1979 began in perfect weather conditions but within 48 hours, the deadliest storm in the history of modern sailing struck off the south coast of Ireland. By the time it had passed, the havoc caused was immeasurable. Even more devastating, it had mercilessly taken the lives of 15 sailors.

Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea

Before The Perfect Storm, before In the Heart of the Sea, Steven Callahan's Adrift chronicled one of the most astounding voyages of the century and one of the great sea adventures of all time. In some ways the model for the new wave of adventure books, Adrift is now an undeniable seafaring classic, a riveting firsthand account by the only man known to have survived for more than a month alone at sea, fighting for his life in an inflatable raft after his small sloop capsized.

Blown Away

At middle age, Herb and Nancy Payson decided they needed a change. Why not give up life on shore, quit their jobs in the smoky nightclubs of Los Angeles, and take up the cruising life? In Sea Foam, their 36-foot ketch, the Paysons and their large brood of teenage children cruised the Pacific for six and a half years. They experienced a certain amount of stark terror, but their delights far outbalanced the drawbacks. This special 35th anniversary edition is enhanced with a foreword by Lin Pardey, plus Herb's reflections on how cruising affected his children and his relationship with his determined, lifelong partner/wife Nancy.

The Sea-Wolf

When Humphrey Van Weyden finds himself struggling in the freezing waters of San Francisco Bay, he thinks the worst that can happen to him is drowning. After he is rescued by the Ghost and its captain, Wolf Larson, Humphrey discovers that there are fates far worse than death. On Larsen's hell-ship, the dilettante hero is forced to slave as cabin boy and humble seaman. And over the seven months' voyage to the sealing grounds off Siberia, he engages in an epic duel with his ruthlessly Nietzschean skipper.

Sailing Alone Around the World

Joshua Slocum was believed to be the first man to sail single-handed around the world. After a distinguished career, where he worked his way up from cabin boy to captain, Joshua Slocum wrecked his ship off the coast of Brazil. Turning this catastrophe to his advantage, he built a sailing canoe from the wreckage and sailed back to New York. Moreover, he wrote Voyage of the Liberdad, a chronicle of his trip, and earned some literary success.

Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World

Auckland Island is a godforsaken place in the middle of the Southern Ocean, 285 miles south of New Zealand. With year-round freezing rain and howling winds, it is one of the most forbidding places in the world. To be shipwrecked there means almost certain death. In 1864, Captain Thomas Musgrave and his crew of four aboard the schooner Grafton wreck on the southern end of the island. Utterly alone in a dense coastal forest, plagued by stinging blowflies and relentless rain, Captain Musgrave inspires his men to take action.

Two Years Before the Mast

This is the true story of a Harvard graduate who forsook his studies for two years of the grueling life of an ordinary seaman. This exciting tale was the first to realistically describe the lives of the roughly treated, poorly paid sailors of the merchant marine.

Amazing Sailing Stories: True Adventures from the High Seas

Tales of adventures on the high seas captivate both sailors and those who stand on the shore and gaze out across the oceans. In this original collection of sea stories, edited by veteran writer Dick Durham, the gamut of human experience is mirrored in a world of tragic shipwrecks and sea monsters, epic races and brave rescues, tall ships and tiny dinghies.

At the Mercy of the Sea: The True Story of Three Sailors in a Caribbean Hurricane

"The tale of Carl Wake and the hurricane that was waiting for him goes straight to the heart of the greatest sea stories: they are not about man against the sea, but man against himself. John Kretschmer's audiobook is as perfectly shaped and flawlessly written as such a story can be. In addition to being the best depiction I have ever listened to of what it is like to be inside a hurricane at sea, At the Mercy of the Sea is as moving a story of a man's failure and redemption as can be found anywhere in the literature of the sea. This audiobook is surely destined to become a classic."

Publisher's Summary

Challenged by an expert who said it couldn’t be done, Joshua Slocum, a fearless New England sea captain, set out in April 1895 to prove that a man could sail alone around the world. A little over three years and forty-six thousand miles later, the proof was complete. This is Slocum’s own account of his remarkable adventures during the historic voyage of the Spray.

Whether Slocum was more accomplished as a writer or sailor is hard to say. His writing style is fast paced, witty, and exhilarating, an absorbing match to his harrowing adventures - adventures that included being chased by Moorish pirates off Gibraltar; escaping a fleet of hostile canoes; being submerged by a great wave off the Patagonian coast; an encounter with Black Pedro, “the worst murderer in Tierra del Fuego”; and foiling a nocturnal attack by savages by strewing carpet tacks on the Spray’s deck.

Captain Joshua Slocum (1844–1909) was the first person to circle the globe alone entirely by sea. This remarkable achievement made Slocum the most famous North American sailor of all time.

As a long-time consumer of recorded books, I’d rate Sailing Alone Around the World as one of the most enjoyable examples of the genre that I’ve ever encountered. By the time Captain Slocum had laid the deck of his aptly named schooner, the “Spray”, in Chapter One and launched her into her natural element, I was completely hooked and my admiration grew throughout the book. Slocum’s narrative style – direct, unaffected, informative – along with his self-deprecating humor, reminded me of another American writer named Samuel Clemens, and it engenders the same feeling of likability. Captain Slocum would surely join Mr. Twain, as one of the ten people I’d most like to invite for an evening of dinner and conversation. Slocum’s account of his voyage is an intriguing blend of introspective, travelogue, and adventure. Contrary to what one might expect (particularly a non-sailor like myself) the captain spent a great deal of his time at sea reading in his cabin, leaving the Spray to find her own way. This wasn’t as reckless as it might seem. Far from land and the major trade routes, with many fathoms of water beneath her keel, a blue water sailor like the Spray could cruise safely and reliably for mile after mile without a hand at the wheel, maintained on her course by the balanced impulses of wind and water on sails and rudder and hull. An experienced seaman like Joshua Slocum could remain comfortably below decks, out of the elements, and read – or even sleep! – confident that he would sense any significant change in conditions or the behavior of his craft. This is evidently what he did during many long stretches, which answers one of my more pressing questions. How did a man with his modest educational background, who had spent most of his adult life working at physically demanding jobs, become such a graceful, imaginative, and appealing writer? The answer is that he learned by reading great writers who had preceded him. Only a few specific titles in his library are mentioned, and these are primarily classics of nautical literature; but it’s evident that Slocum stocked his tiny cabin with scores, if not hundreds of books of all kinds, replenishing these with new volumes whenever he had an opportunity. The results of this immersion are obvious in almost every line that he wrote. Indeed, I’d be pleased to be judged half the writer that Slocum became in his later life, when this book was written. Slocum stopped frequently during his voyage in ports around the world, often remaining for prolonged visits, during which he explored the countryside, sampled local culture, and met a variety of native people, as well as expatriate Americans and Europeans. His journey took place at the end of the nineteenth century, during the last heyday of European colonialism. Consequently, as news of their endeavor preceded them, Slocum and the Spray were welcomed wherever they went, particularly by elements of the world’s great navies, which maintained bases in many foreign ports. As a result, Slocum rarely paid port fees or docking charges and was frequently provided with repairs to his boat, as well as provisioning at no cost. On a number of occasions he was even towed by naval vessels, whose captains were only too glad to help him out of difficult situations. Far from sleeping aboard his vessel in port, he was routinely entertained, often in grand style by ambassadors, port officials, and other representatives of European power, anxious to demonstrate their good will toward this adventurous Yankee. One couldn’t do this sort of thing nowadays, when sailing around the world is almost a commonplace; but Slocum was the first ever to undertake a solo circumnavigation and the people he met, especially sailors and naval personnel couldn’t do enough for him. It must have been delightful; but, to his credit, Slocum didn’t allow special treatment to go to his head. The modesty and good humor that are evident in his writing must have been reflected in the way he behaved in life, and these characteristics seem to have ingratiated him with everyone he met. This is not to say that sailing a small boat single-handed around the world was either easy or uneventful. For every pleasant interlude that the captain spent relaxing in some friendly port, there were harrowing, often life threatening experiences that taxed nerve, wit, and resolve to the ultimate degree. He was obviously a man of considerable physical strength and endurance, not to mention exemplary seamanship, yet on many occasions these qualities were barely enough to ensure his survival. In fact, without considerable luck to go along with his other resources, Captain Slocum and the Spray might never have made it back to New England. Through it all, whether battling mountainous waves to outrun Barbary pirates, clinging to the Spray’s masthead, while the entire boat vanished beneath roiling seas, or threading his way through the deadly shoals of the Magellan Straits during a night of gale force winds, Slocum retains the stoicism and calm acceptance of a man who is used to hard knocks and strenuous exertion as a part of everyday life. If his descriptions of events weren’t so vivid, one would hardly know how often he escaped disaster or even death by the thinnest of margins. By the time he anchors the Spray in his home port after more than two years of sailing over many tens of thousands of miles of the world’s oceans, it’s clear that he has taken us on one of the most extraordinary adventures in the history of the sea. Performance art is an amalgam of the writer’s original conception and the performer’s interpretation of it. The combination isn’t always a happy one, but in this case it works perfectly, which is actually rather strange. Joshua Slocum was a Yankee, born and bred, so we can assume that he spoke with a typical Yankee inflection. Since he wrote his account in the first person, one might think that having someone with Bernard Mayes’ aristocratic English diction narrate the book would seem incongruous. This is not the case. Mayes’ rendition is pitch perfect in both tone and style; and his accent is so pleasant that I’m not sure I would like the book as much, if it were read with a more “authentic” northeasterner’s twang. As a matter of fact, I’m considering buying several other audiobooks simply because Mr. Mayes is the reader. I finished listening to Sailing Alone Around the World a couple of months ago with that curious mixture of pleasure and regret that attends the conclusion of memorable experiences. I can't exaggerate how much I enjoyed the book, especially in audio format, and I recommend it unreservedly to anyone who likes a good yarn, expertly told.

The days of sail are being replaced by steam and one man rebuilds a small small sailing ship and sails alone around the world. Throughout he honours his sloop The Spray and recounts her charm in calm and tempest alike.

While a few have indeed followed his lead, this is a great listen to a book recounting the voyage completed before 1900.

By being American instead of British this performance could have improved greatly.Joshua Slocum wrote this book from his own perspective about a real journey he made and it would be more authentic to hear an American voice.

Also pronouncing nautical terms correctly would have aided in authenticity.

the narration does no justice to Captain Slocum's story

Was Sailing Alone Around the World worth the listening time?

The source material is this book's only redeeming feature. an engaging, and well written story.

Any additional comments?

Find another version. There are a few different narrators covering this classic story. Shop around.

I can't think of a book or audiobook I have enjoyed more than this one. This is my third time through, twice reading and one time by audiobook and it's new and fresh each time.

The narrator was absolutely perfect for the story, his pitch and pace we're just what I would expect from Captain Slocum himself. Some have complained of his British accent but remember Slocum was born in Eastern Canada Canada and sailed for many years out of Boston. I'm sure he spoke with some type of accent, maybe not British but definitely distinctive.

A wonderful tale, told without pretension and always with delightfully modest good humour. Capt. J Slocombe comes across as a hugely like able character whose modesty clearly belies his incredible skill and courage. The narration is sensitive to the story and delivered in a voice that is very believable as that of a wise old sea Captain.

It's hard to imagine a more engaging book. I read this many years ago, but somehow the audio recording made it come alive all over again. It's extraordinary to think that A mariner with such skill as to sail alone around the world also proves to be one of our great writers. The book is written with humor, wit, a philosophical bent, and above all a great sense of adventure. It is a triumph of humanity, as well as of good storytelling. This is a book for the ages. Download it now, it's a book you'll remember all your life.